190 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



all the turmoil sank below, leaving a starlit sky 

 above. 



Sleeping-bags were customary in the Pyrenees. 

 Mr. George Bentham told me that when he botanised 

 in the little Republic of Andorre some years 

 previously, there was not a bed in the place, and he 

 was lent a sleeping-bag. They were familiar to 

 Arctic travellers,but had not been thought of by Alpine 

 climbers, so I published my experiences. In conse- 

 quence, at an amusing dinner of the Alpine Club, of 

 which I was a member for a few years, I was toasted 

 by Mr. Wm. Longman as the greatest " bagman " in 

 Europe. It is very difficult to arrange any sleeping 

 gear that shall satisfy those who rough it rarely. 

 Luxury is out of place. I read in some well-known 

 book that one of the Camerons of Lochiel, when 

 bivouacking with his son in the snow, noticed that 

 the lad had rolled up a snowball to make a pillow. 

 He thereupon rose and kicked it away, saying sternly, 

 " No effeminacy, boy." 



Bears were not infrequent. We reached, I think 

 it was Cauteret, after passing a small plantation near 

 the town. During the table d'hote there was a rush 

 to the windows to see the dead body of a big bear 

 cub which had just been killed at that very plantation. 

 Its mother, who was with it, escaped. I often saw 

 their human-like tracks. They occasionally kill oxen. 

 Once, when near a cattle station, while watching the 

 cattle returning home in file, each in its turn executed 

 a fantastic sort of war-dance as it passed a particular 

 spot, such as I had frequently, but by no means 

 invariably, witnessed in Africa, when a line of my 

 cattle passed over the place where I had shot an ox 



